I’ve noticed that as far as life changing situations and circumstances go, most of the good ones take time. Everything that we want to be different takes time to enact, whether its a gradual change, or one big change that takes preparation. There aren’t a whole lot of times you wake up and a neighbor wins the lottery and is kind enough to help you solve your financial problems.

Looking over the things that I typically post about (and the things I used to post about), there really isn’t a whole lot of change. Sure, my blog is less than a year old, but nothing big in my life has occurred. As I said yesterday, I suspect a change like this is forthcoming, even if I have to force it to happen. I could very well make my position worse, who knows. All I know is that while I do consider myself ‘happy’ right now, I’m not content. I’ve felt this way for a while, and that may or my not be apparent.

This is further proof that everything takes time. The best advice I can give on that front is simply: Patience. I would say my blog has accomplished virtually nothing. The only real results I’ve seen from it is the fact that I can now reliably write a short story every week, and I know I couldn’t do that even a year ago. I would say I’ve learned a little more discipline because now I write every day, but since it hasn’t influenced my life in any other way (that I could tell), I would be hesitant to even say that.

Again I’m reminded of that million word barrier to entry in the professional writing world. Currently, my writing tallies up to about two hundred thousand words worth of fiction (two hundred thirty if you go by publishing standards), and about one hundred twenty-five (or one hundred fifty) thousand words from the blog alone. It’s easily twice as long as any stand-alone piece of fiction I’ve written, yet I don’t feel comfortable adding the two numbers together and saying I’ma  third of the way to that goal of one million.

But you know what? It doesn’t matter. If I see my becoming a professional writer as an inevitability, (which the optimistic part of me constantly whispers,) it doesn’t even matter how many words I’ve written. I’ll get there one day, and all I have to do is wait. It’s either a gradual change, or one that requires preparation. Obviously this one is gradual, but for a lot of things, as is my case, it can be so gradual that it appears not to be moving at all.

I don’t feel as though I’ve grown as a writer since I started in February, but I’ve written over sixty thousand words of fiction between now and then. I’ve increased my entire total output by around thirty percent in the span of a few months! I can’t pretend that I haven’t grown as a writer.

So, as slow as stagnant as things may seem to be, we’re always changing. The best part about all this, is that we can’t not change. Time doesn’t allow for stagnation, so regardless of any choices we make, we’re constantly learning and growing. You’ll find yourself where you want to be, in time. Just be patient.